World Day Against Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar industry, second only to the drug trade in financial gain and is estimated to involve around 21 million people…
Reflections from the United Nations
For many the image of the UN is of a large, ponderous bureaucracy striving for world order against insuperable odds – while there may be a grain of truth in this it is far from the truth…
With Courage Let Us All Combine: Celebrating Refugee Week
Spending four months at the United Nations with the IBVM/Loreto non-government office provides a unique opportunity to view refugees from a global perspective…
South Sudan Famine: Loreto Calls for Action
A senior United Nations official has warned that 20 million people are starving to death in the worst famine since World War II…
Shining a Light on Sorry Day 2017
Writing from our UN NGO office in New York it seemed important to shine a more international light on National Sorry Day in 2017, particularly as the UN Indigenous Forum is soon to begin in New York…
Stand Up for Someone’s Rights Today
In this era of Brexit, Trump, Duterte and the destruction of much of the Middle East there is the temptation to retreat to the known and familiar, to build a wall around our own little enclave and focus on my particular concerns. What flows from this is, inevitably, fear…
A Safe Place to Stay
The numbers of homeless on the streets of Australian cities and towns increase as real estate prices sky rocket in Sydney and Melbourne. Investors, ever on the move for a sure buck, buy more and more houses and units, often leaving them empty…
Refugee Week – Celebration or Lamentation?
A poignant post script to the recent announcement that that the five refugees sent from Manus Island to Cambodia had opted…